American Consumers Should Beware of Great Deals on Canadian Cars, According to Edmunds.com

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  mvg2 Member Posts: 1

  May 2013

  Federal law requires odometers to display speed in mph for imported cars. Most cars sold in Canada comply with this requirement as they have the speed displayed both in km/h and mph. Therefore an odometer swap is not mandated by law as indicated in the article. However, I suspect that a shady importer may swap odometers in order to raise fewer questions.
  Also nothing prevents the importer from removing the original maple leaf door jamb label and replace it with (or have it covered up by) a new one purporting a US manufactured vehicle.

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  applecreeker2 Member Posts: 1

  May 2013

  Funny that since a lot of American brands are made in Canada we should be careful NOT to buy a Canadian car. This is a marketing problem created by tariffs and border disputes, not by cars.

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  schwinnhund Member Posts: 2

  May 2013

  What a garbage article. None of the problems described are unique to Canada. American car salesmen have also turned back odometers, got bogus titles, sold stolen vehicles, etc...This is nothing new. You need to check your auto carefully before buying it.
  
  As far as kilometers vs. miles, this is not a problem. it is not illegal for a car to register in kilometers instead of miles. You just need to remember that 55 mph is 88 kph. And it is easy to convert the odo. readings into miles.
  
  This is a non-issue, and wasn't even worth an article. Anyone who has bought very many used cars already knows about this stuff.

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  schwinnhund Member Posts: 2

  May 2013

  Federal law only requires odometers to register in miles on cars manufactured in the United States, or on new cars imported into the US. If you took a classic Aston-Martin, or a MG and converted the odo, you would destroy the collector value of it. Used cars are always sold "As-Is".
  
  I have had several used foreign cars with metric speedometers and odometers. It's never been a problem.

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  tilly2015 Member Posts: 1

  November 2015 edited November 2015

  I disagree with it being a garbage article. Not everyone knows about the warranty. In fact a friend just bought a car in Spokane, WA. He wasn't told it was a Canadian car. He isn't covered for warranty here and they can't even program a new key for him. Also, the emissions testing here could cause him a problem as well.

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  krisjeeper Member Posts: 1

  January 2016

  Tilly2015, I would like to know what ended up happening with your friend and his vehicle. I, too, purchased an almost new Jeep Wrangler (9,000 miles). When I called for warranty work, I was told the vehicle was improperly imported from Canada. I didn't even know the vehicle came from Canada. I am going to have to sue the used car dealership, obviously. But was wondering what your friend ended up doing.

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